Monday, 16 January 2017

186: Route 66 photo shoot (Deadwool)

I've never understood the relationship that SL clothing designers have with SL fashion bloggers. Somehow it's gone off the rails, at least as near as I can tell. (I've never worked at it.) It's like customers competing to see who can design the best advertisements to sell the most product FOR FREE ... in order to keep the job you do for free, you have to learn Photoshop and a bunch of other computer programs on your own dime. You obligate yourself to produce blog posts on a grueling schedule and constantly have to buy props and poses and filters and whatnot. Hours and hours and HOURS every week on Facebook and Flickr and all kinds of social media platforms. Writing copy and making notes on the SLURL for where the eyelashes came from. If you're really, really lucky, you'll get an arrangement with a good designer for a bunch of free clothes and stuff that would cost you approximately what it might cost to get yourself a six-pack of beer or a good hamburger to buy for yourself. And yet there are thousands of fashion bloggers who are prepared to work the equivalent of a full-time job to promote a virtual blouse or pair of Capris that only brings in pocket change per copy to the designer and bugger-all to the blogger.

Don't get me wrong, there are fashion bloggers out there who do amazing work. Astonishingly beautiful images with meaning and power that are well worth looking at, even if I'm never going to buy a pair of virtual Capri pants. You know who they are, the ones at the top; I think they must do it for the love of exercising their creative skills, because it's sure not paying off financially. I've never heard of anyone promoting themselves this kind of job in real life based on a Second Life portfolio, but I suppose it could happen. In the meantime it must be a hellish job to monetize even the most marketable blog stats; 99% of your advertisers will automatically come from SL, and that means you're always self-referential.

In the past, I've grumbled about how it works, mostly because there seems to be a lot of bullying involved lower down in the hierarchy of blogging and I find it unpleasant. Perhaps I've mellowed. If the people who are doing this blog are having fun and there of their own free will, who am I to argue? So I don't want to change anyone's mind about how fashion blogging should work. I do want to give it a try, though, it looks like fun.

So here's my fashion blogging manifesto and we'll see if anyone likes the idea. (1) I buy all the items myself, so I can say anything I want to. That being said, I don't see much point in talking about stuff I don't like. (2) It takes me more than a couple of pictures to tell a story in the way that I want (in the same way that you've already realized that I talk too much LOL). (3) I don't feel compelled to do it a lot. (4) Please, do not offer to give me clothes or suggest that I do a piece on your clothes or anything like that. If this works, it will only work because I want to talk about you without prompting.

The inspiration for the shoot was that my husband Alex Thaub, retired international supermodel, and I bought a skybox from Bartlett & Nielsen that looks like the last gas station on Route 66, because we both liked the design. It sort of called out for a photo shoot, and we thought it called for business suits, and in both our wardrobes that means Deadwool (helmed by Masa Plympton). I can't remember the last time I was as impressed with a designer's work as I was when I got their Dandy business suit; simply put it looked like a real suit that a real person would wear, and it was wrinkled where it would be if a real person was wearing it. All their stuff is at a similar high level of quality and they are the kind of clothes that you find yourself wearing in all kinds of situations. Highly recommended; needless to say, I've never spoken to Masa Plympton about it, so this is my fan letter. ;-)